


please don't say you love me

by rosesandcinnamon



Series: please don't say you love me / cause i might not say it back [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/F, Multi, not sorry, yeah this is really sad im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 02:43:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosesandcinnamon/pseuds/rosesandcinnamon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Ymir dies in Trost, and defying everyone's expectations, Christa continues living.<br/>----<br/>Inspired by Gabrielle Aplin's Please Don't Say You Love Me, and then it spiraled out of control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	please don't say you love me

**Author's Note:**

> 100% worse if you listen to [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h8u2xnO8wY) while reading.

  

_just please don't say you love me_

_'cause I might not say it back_

_\----------------------------------------------------------_

Ymir went up the hill to the tree Christa was sitting against, staring out across the training grounds. She sat down beside her, close enough to touch.

“What did you need to talk to me about, Christa?”

Her voice was unusually quiet, and Christa turned to her, an unfamiliar look in her eyes. She took a deep breath in, and met Ymir’s gaze.

“Ymir, I l-“

Ymir stopped her with a gentle hand on her cheek, amber eyes soft.

“Please, Christa... Don’t say it. It’s- it’s not because I don’t feel the same, don’t think that, it’s…”

Christa looked up at her, nodding with a wistful smile.

“I get it, Ymir. Just… We- never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

She closed the space between them and put her head on Ymir’s chest, pressing close to hear her steady heartbeat and closing her eyes. Ymir responded in kind, looping her arms around Christa and placing a soft kiss on her head. They understood each other, and didn’t need words.

 At least, not then.

 

* * *

 The next day, they were in the same squad.

But that didn’t prevent them from getting separated.

Christa flew across buildings to where she had last lost sight of Ymir, calling her name desperately as she ran across a rooftop. She was about to jump off and swing to the next partially-crushed house, when something caught her eye and the breath in her lungs.

She swung across diagonally instead, and dropped neatly to the ground, not too far from a body. Christa sprinted across what was left of a road, praying it wasn’t who she thought.

“No, no, no, no… _no_!”

She fell to her knees besides Ymir’s broken form, tears already blurring her vision.

“Please, Ymir, come on, I-“

She felt along her neck, fumbling for a pulse on cold skin, sobbing.

Christa found nothing, of course.

“I didn’t get to say it, no, this can’t be _happening_ -“

Her sobs broke into her words, and she bowed her head, overcome by grief.

“You didn’t let me tell you I love you. Dammit, Ymir!”

 She cried there, over Ymir’s broken body, for too long to say.

 

* * *

 

It was quiet that day at dinner.

 Christa didn’t touch her food, looking at her plate with an empty stare.

Mikasa, shoving her leftovers at Eren without a word, got up and went to sit with her. She touched the blonde girl’s arm gently, nodding towards her food, speaking in a low tone. Christa started at the touch, looking up quickly at Mikasa, confused. Mikasa gestured to her plate again, and Christa slowly picked up her fork. Eren openly stared at the two girls, until Armin elbowed him.

“Eren.”

Eren turned back to him, a thoughtful look on his face.

“I didn’t know they were friends.”

Armin shrugged, watching them out of the corner of his eye. Christa, having taken a few bites, put down her fork and hid her face in her hands, and Mikasa rubbed her back, saying something. She looked across the silent room at Annie, and with a nod, she left her spot, sitting down at Christa’s other side.

At that point, most of the room was awkwardly looking at them, but trying not to. Annie raised her head, icy stare making them snap their attention back to where it was before.

Christa’s sobs racked her small body, and after a minute, Annie helped her up, Mikasa guiding them out so she could get some air.

“Come on, Christa, you’re going to make yourself sick if you cry like this.”

Christa hiccupped at her, wiping her eyes. She let herself fall back against the building, looking up at the sky.

“She… She didn’t let me say it. And I wanted to so badly. I knew, some part of me _knew_ -“

Annie was a few steps from her, listening with an unusually soft look on her face. Mikasa touched her shoulder gingerly, unsure if she was done talking.

“I suppose… I wanted to say it for the same reason she didn’t want me to.”

She continued looking at the stars, speaking softly, her tears still falling.

 “We were both so afraid.”

 

* * *

 

Christa stood silently, staring at the flames of the funeral pyre. She played absently with Ymir’s hair clip in her hands, a stray tear slipping down her cheek. Annie had left, and Mikasa was with Armin, so Christa felt oddly alone for the first time in a week. In a while, actually. Ymir wasn’t standing behind her, close enough to reach out if need be. Ymir wasn’t there at all. Jean, a few feet away, caught her attention. She went over, putting Ymir’s hair clip in a pocket. As Jean seemed lost in his own emotion, Christa just laid a small hand on his back, letting him know someone was there. The heat of the fire was a little too much in her heavy jacket, but it was alright. Something to let her know she was alive, after all.

_God, shorty, still selfless and idiotic even after all of that._

Snapped out of her daze by the sound of Ymir’s voice, Christa looked around. No, it was just her imagination.

“Damn, I must be desperate if I’m hearing her voice,” she muttered to herself, roughly swiping away a few tears. Noticing that everyone was starting to leave, she led Jean away from the pyre, glancing back one last time.

 They had both lost someone they loved to the flames, after all.

 

* * *

 

After that, in the little spare time she had, Christa took up drawing.

She drew flowers, the view of the sky, the occasional portrait, but mainly, she drew Ymir. Ymir smiling at someone (assumedly, her, Ymir never looked at anyone but Christa like that), staring into the distance, asleep, one interesting drawing where her freckles looked like stars breaking through her skin.

One day, Armin sat beside her, watching her draw until he asked a question.

“Why?”

Christa took a moment to respond, sketching carefully.

“Because if I forgot the lines of her face, the color of her eyes, the freckles scattered everywhere, her smile, it… it would kill me. I’m already forgetting the sound of her voice, Armin. I can’t forget her. I can’t.”

Armin nodded thoughtfully, staring at the other drawings around her.

Soon after that, she began drawing everyone else, all her friends, all the people she interacted with. Still Ymir, always Ymir, but she added in the others.

  Armin always made sure she had paper. It was a small thing he, someone who still had the most important people in his life, could do for her.

 

* * *

 

Worst of all, Christa dreamt about her. Every night, if she was able to recall her dreams in the morning.

She dreamt of things that had actually happened, little pieces of the times they spent together.

She dreamt of things that could have happened, imaginary moments of them together.

She dreamt of things that seemed barely possible, strange scenarios in worlds that didn’t seem to be theirs.

She wasn’t sure if the dreams were a blessing or a curse. It was nice to believe, sometimes, that Ymir was okay, that they would see each other again. But it hurt, more than any physical pain Christa had ever experienced, to wake and remember it was just her now. And she wasn’t one to delude herself, not now. Not after what Ymir had taught her.

She _hated_ that she had never gotten to tell Ymir her name (or that she loved her, of course). Sometimes, in her dreams, Ymir called her by Historia. It was nice, actually. To hear the name she had grown to hate said so lovingly. She doubted she would ever go by Historia Reiss again, though. There was no point in it.

Some part of her, though, wondered. What was the secret Ymir was willing to trade for her name? Was it truly that important? Or did Ymir truly value Christa that much?

 She didn’t know. And wouldn’t.

 

* * *

 

Petra heard a lot of stories about Christa and Ymir. How Christa had befriended Ymir and they had stayed together all through training, how everyone loved Christa, but had less than stellar opinions of Ymir, but neither of them seemed to care. She heard about how the two girls were inseparable most of the time, until Trost.

After lunch, seeing that Christa was still sitting at a table, Petra slid in across from her. Christa looked up, and Petra smiled. They had been acquainted a while ago, but hadn’t really talked.

“Do you mind if I ask you about Ymir? I hear a lot of stories about you guys, and I just wanted to hear about her from the person who knew her best.”

Christa smiled back, nodding thoughtfully.

“It’s okay, I could stand to talk about her. Ymir… The first thing you noticed was how tall she is, then how shifty she looks, she has the same criminal look in her eyes Jean and Eren do-“

Her voice broke, and she looked at Petra apologetically, eyes a little watery.

“Had, not has. I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. She… Everyone stopped right there, you know, just assuming she might steal their stuff or pull a prank in the middle of the night. Which she did, but if you looked closer, there was so much more. You saw the watchfulness in her eyes, just how beautiful that smile was. And you could stare at her freckles- she had them everywhere, I should know- for hours if she would let you. She… she was my best friend, for lack of a better word. I loved her so much. She helped me. A lot. And… I still love her. I’ll always love her. And she didn’t let me tell her that.”

Petra listened to her, looking at her with just a touch of sadness.

“I’m so sorry you lost her, Christa. It sounds like you were very important to each other.”

She smiled tightly, avoiding Petra’s eyes.

“Everyone loses someone. And it’s my fault I only had one person to lose.”

Petra slipped around the table to give Christa a hug, leaving afterwards.

 Christa sat alone, head on her arms, lost in memory, until someone needed her. Then she got up, wiped her eyes, and went to help.

 

* * *

 

Life went on, nothing particularly interesting or special, until Christa had a strange dream.

This differed from the normal ones. It felt like it meant something.

_Christa lay with her head in Ymir’s lap, looking up at her. Ymir was holding her face, stroking her hair, and-_

_Crying. She was crying._

_“I’m so sorry, Christa, I am so sorry-“_

_Christa frowned, reaching up to tuck a piece of Ymir’s hair back._

_“Why are you sorry?”_

_Ymir shook her head, stifling a sob. Christa brushed away a few of her tears, and Ymir managed to smile, just for a second._

_“I’m sorry.”_

Christa woke up then, sitting up slowly. She was greeted, as always, by the wall space of her bunk covered in her drawings, held up with pure will and determination. She liked waking up to Ymir’s face, even if it was on paper. Something cold and wet was on her face, and she brushed it away, to find that her eyes were wet. Seeing that everyone was getting up, she wiped her face and joined them, getting into her gear.

The day after, when she, Connie, Bertholdt, Reiner, and their squad leaders were trapped in Castle Utgard, she thought she knew what her dream meant.

Realizing that their barricade wouldn’t work, realizing that the tower was close to collapsing, she laughed.

She had worked so hard to continue living, and she was going to die here. Eaten by titans.

 At least she went down fighting.

 

* * *

 

When Mikasa and the others arrived, it was a sad scene.

They found Connie, or at least what was left of him. Bertholdt and Reiner were gone, assumingly dead too.

They found Christa too, Ymir’s old hair clip clutched in her hand, and it seemed like she had died smiling. Mikasa sighed, shaking her head. Christa filled the room with light, wherever she was, and it was going to be hard to live without her.

At least she and Ymir could be together again.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry not sorry you guys please don't hurt me  
> Kate called me satan when she started the fic im so proud of myself uwu


End file.
